Ploughing Campaign

Intrusions

• There was little evidence that promised reserves were going to be delivered.
    
• Surveying of confiscated land began in 1878.
    
• Surveyors cut lines through cultivations, fences and trample cash-crops.
    
• Māori retaliated by uprooting survey pegs.
    
• Then Native Minister John Sheehan rode to Parihaka to force Te Whiti to comply – He did not.
    
• Sheehan reported Parihaka could only be taken by force. So Tohu evicted the surveyors.

First Resistance

• Māori began to plough farmers’ fields in Taranaki.
    
• Farmers angry – Governor (Hercules Robinson) made a special visit and “exploded with indignation.”
    
• Te Whiti asserted ploughing was directed at government – not at farmers.
    
• 100 armed men confronted Ploughers at Hawera – intending to shoot them. They were talked out of violence by those they had come to shoot.

The Empire Strikes Back

• June 29 1879 Armed Constabulary start arresting ploughmen.
    
• Te Whiti said that those with greatest mana should be the first to plough.
    
• This led to the arrest of many prominent Māori.
    
• By August 200 people had been arrested.
    
• British were facing prospect that there wouldn’t be enough room to hold them all.
    
• On August 10th Te Whiti agreed to a truce.